Membrane

thinking on gesturewhat is a gesture? I would like this text to become a reanimation gesture ofthe politics of everyday gestures a gesture of togetherness,an invitation to share the knowledge we received in Athens1why? was it imposed? was it an imposed gesture?without an aim?
the “art” of creating nothing
what does collecting gestures actually mean through the work on score(s)? embodiedorigin of language(in)visible actions repertoire2 of gestures in place of, or in conjunction with, speechinformativecommunicativepublicrhetorical culturally and contextually inflectedquotable gestures - conventionalised meanings patternrepetition

“more of a circular movement”

ritual

religion

school

corporeal forms of cultural communication

gestures migrate3 across bodies and locations to create new

cultural meanings...

(geographical)4

...and associations5

gesture of being aware

the school of gesture is an invitation to “find ways to listen to the body”

gestures are a form of "resistance

to homogenisation":

they depend on the specificities of the bodies that perform them6

queer theory

cultural studies

theater

performance

dance studies

"what is the line between gesture and performance?"

how the body gains social meaning

(posture)

Ephemera – politics in Art

gesture in queer sexual practices as a way

to rewrite gender and

negotiate power relations7

where do things reappear?

Weibliche und männliche Körpersprache

als Folge patriarchalischer Machtverhältnisse

political projects of social justice that are incomplete, partial

"means without ends"

withheld gestures

Interruption is a gesture

meditation as a gesture8

failure as a gesture

tend to be universal

do not necessarily need to be understood

sometimes a gesture is equivalent in meaning to what's being said

mirroring words

imitating

fashion

icons

rock, paper, scissors

memory

crinkles

could gesture be a continuum9 from less linguistic to fully linguistic?

gestures are polysemic

replaced by socially regulated signs

:-)
smileys

reappearance of gesture

and the gesture of reappearance

shared conventions

social interaction

applications

emblems

obscenities

discussions

ambiguous

“ OK"

"good"

head nod

“ Yes”

feet

thumbs

agreement

submission

handshakes

gesture of politeness

Poker

gaze

meeting

greeting

offering

congratulating

what is appropriate

business world

Hunger & Language // South as a State of Mind

Tongue as a device

formal relationships

strategic

erasure (of places) through crisis10

STATES OF EMERGENCY

gesture of production and labour

production choreography

task-orientation

ulterior or hidden motive

manipulation

impression

domination

social media

a gesture of power

intensity

running ahead like a train

taking the experience!

length

closeness

in between

holding hands

romantic interest

love

what gestures are around?

private rooms - confronted with habits and borders

confidence

one-to-one

touching stresses how special the message is

nonverbal accent

emotional attachment

to the public

to show

sexual

arousal

intent

spatial relationship

measurable distance

invasion

personal territory

whispering

eye-to-eye

taboo

both humans and animals share similar postural expressions of emotions11

social animals (including humans)

natural ability to relay emotional signals with one another

familiarity

comprehension

guide

hint

urge

answer

intuition

suggestion

unspoken clue

additional information

literal and figurative language

metaphor

The School of Gesture took place in Athens in May, 2017 and was reanimated in Kassel two months later under the question of what a gesture is. These two experiences sparked off various ideas, that we have tried to put together in this text.
After this sharing experience we learnt grand gestures from each other and realised how difficult it is to frame the question of what a gesture it. We enjoyed taking notes, going through the reading materials once again, we tried out some movements, we laugh, we learnt and we had fun.

Esther Poppe and Natalia Escudero López

©Esther Poppe

1 http://www.documenta14.de/en/calendar/21246/school-of-gesture-public-moments

2 Repertoire: a stock of plays, dances, or items that a company or a performer knows or is prepared to perform; the whole body of items which are regularly performed; a stock of skills or types of behaviour that a person habitually uses.

3 http://www.documenta14.de/en/calendar/23557/what-is-a-gesture-membrane

4 http://www.documenta14.de/en/calendar/21246/school-of-gesture-public-moments

5 Noland, Carrie. "Introduction". Migration of Gesture . Ed. Carrie Noland and Sally Ann Ness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. p. x.

6 Noland, Carrie. " "

7 Rodríguez, Juana María. Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings. New York: NYU Press, 2014.8 Yoga as a schooled praxis “based on” the repetition of exercises.9 Blackstone, S (2000). Gestures in AAC. Augmentative Communication News (ACN) . Vol. 13 no. 1.10 Agamben, Giorgio. Notes on gestures11 Soto, Jose Angel; Levenson, Robert W. (2009). Emotion recognition across cultures: The influence of ethnicity on empathic accuracy and physiological linkage

References and Artist we were working with

School of Gesture in Athens (Link)

Anna Halprin & Lawrence Halprin_Dokumenta 14 Artist (Link)

Lawrence Halprin on Design: RSVP Cycles (Link)

Rasheed Araeen_documenta 14 Artist (Link)

PrinzGohlam_dokumenta 14 Artist (Link)

Alexandra Bachzetsis_dokumenta 14 Artist (Link) (Link)

Mary Zygouri_dokumenta 14 Artist (Link)

Otobong Nkanga_dokumenta 14 Artist (Link)

Erik Van Buuren and Otobong Nkanga. What is a Circular Economy and How Can We Make It Possible? (Link)

Collective Exhibition for a single body: curated by Pierre Bal Blanc, documenta 14 (Link) (Link)

Literature and References

Andrea de Jorio. Gesture in Naples and Gesture in Classical Antiquity. Translated by Adam Kendon, Indiana University Press; Auflage: Annotated edition (Mai 2000)

Gene Ray. Writing the Ecocide-Genocide Knot: Indigenous Knowledge and Critical Theory in the Endgame. South as a State of Mind #8 [documenta 14 #3] Editors: Quinn Latimer, Adam Szymczyk (Link)

Rasheed Araeen. Art Beyond Art, Ecoaesthetics: A Manifesto for the 21st Century. Third Text Publications (2010) (Link)

Gustave Le Bon. The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. Larlin Corp; Auflage: Reprint (1. September 1982) (PDF)

Anna & Lawrence Halprin. The Rsvp Cycles: Creative Processes in the Human Environment. George Braziller Inc (1. Juni 1970) (Link)

Lawrence Halprin. The RSVP Cycles: Creative Processes in the Human Environment. (George Braziller: New York 1969)

The RSVP Cycles: Creative Processes in the Human Environment. (PDF)

Kathy Acker: Against Ordinary Language: The Language of the Body (1992). (PDF)

Michel Foucault. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Pantheon Books, 1975. (PDF)

Marina Fokidi s, Sergio Risaliti , Saphene Vitali. The Gesture: A Visual Library in Progress. Maschietto Editore and Fondazione Fabbrica Europa (2005) (Link)

Agamben, G. (2000). “Notes on Gesture” in Means without End: Notes on Politics (V. Binetti & C. Casarino, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 49-60. (PDF) (PDF)

Marianne Wex: “Female” and “Masculine” Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Power Relations (Link) (Link)

Dimitris Damaskos. The uses of Antiquity in photographs by Nelly: imported modernism and home-grown ancestor worship in inter-war Greece (PDF)

Diana Taylor. Performance and intangible cultural heritage (pp 91-104) The Cambridge Companion to Performance Studies,Edited by Tracy C. Davis Cambridge University Press, 2008

Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis. Essay on “ Naples ” (1925)

Ruth Zaporah. Action Theater: The Improvisation of Presence. North Atlantic Books (15. Juni 1995)

Jonathan Burrows. A Choreographer's Handbook published by Routledge: Taylor & Francis (2010)

Bruno Munari. Supplemento al Dizionario Italiano. English, German, French and Italian Edition; Illustrated edition (January 1, 2000) (Link)

Claire Bishop. Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. Chapter 2 “The Historic Avant-garde” published by Verso (24. Juli 2012) (Link)

Hendrik Folkerts. Keeping Score: Notation, Embodiment, and Liveness. South as a State of Mind #6 [documenta 14 #1] Editors: Quinn Latimer, Adam Szymczyk (Link) (Link)

Nathan Pohio, Hendrik Folkerts, and Candice Hopkins. The Gesture of Hospitality (Link)

Hendrik Folkerts, Amelia Jones and Arnisa Zeqo. Encountering: Gesture as Event, or The Conceptual Body (Link)

Loncke, F. (2013) Augmentative and Alternative Communication: Models and applications for educators, speech-language pathologists, psychologists, caregivers, and users. San Diego, CA: Plural Publishing Inc.

Noland, Carrie:“Introduction." Migration of Gesture. Ed. Carrie Noland and Sally Ann Ness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008

Rodríguez, Juana María. Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings . New York: NYU Press, 2014.

Blackstone, S (2000). Gestures in AAC . Augmentative Communication News (ACN) . Vol. 13 no. 1.

Soto, Jose Angel; Levenson, Robert W. (2009). Emotion recognition across cultures: The influence of ethnicity on empathic accuracy and physiological linkage

Wikipedia. "Gesture" (Link) and "Body Language" (Link)

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